The six-year-old patted my stomach lightly, “Fat belly.”
Under any other conditions this type of commentary might have merited a verbal slap,
But today I smiled.
“That’s my baby.”
– guess I might be starting to show. –
We’re in.
We’re all moved in and almost completely unpacked (minus three office boxes that might get unpacked before the new year). Does it feel like home? no, but it’s getting close. I’m still in the shock of going from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 4 bedroom house with fireplace, 2 car garage and fenced in backyard. There’s also the oddity of this little room near the master bedroom with a pastel blanket on the door handle. It still floors my mind to think of a baby living in there come late December. But this beginning baby bump is starting to make it feel like just maybe I’m not pretending.
Tomorrow night’s Jes‘ bachelorette party and I really am so excited! I can’t wait to hang out with Jes and the girls. But tonight calls for much prep. But I must confess, I’m really looking forward to all the prep. It really has been quite a joyous process.
Thursday Matt and I head down to Cinci for the weekend. Rehearsal Thursday night, Friday wedding prep and family (extended and immediate) time, and Saturday’s the big day. It’s funny but being Matron of honor doesn’t feel quite as stressful as it once looked when I saw the whole picture. With all my mom’s help in wedding prep, I feel like she should be titled Matron of honor and me… just Matron of show-up and ride it out.
But either way, I’ll be posting later next week after all this joy is behind me and I can reminisce on it’s memory.
And come Saturday… welcome to the family, Nayt. We look forward to having you!
Quick Post Before Silence
This weekend marks our move-out and move-in weekend. That’s right, to the parsonage we go. Praise the Lord! So Matt and I, with much loving help from our friends and family, will take all the belongings of our little one-bedroom apartment and try to make it look like it belongs in our new 4 bedroom house.
I am so excited, people. So excited! All these wonderful ideas are popping into my head as I think about the new space that the Lord has loaned to us for a while. And with new hedge trimmers (which were free to us thanks to an Aunt’s gift card – thanks Aunt Greer) I sincerely find joy within my heart as I think of cutting back the overgrown shrubs. All the excitements and joys of a new place that Matt and I will be blessed to raise our starting family is coming at me at once.
Also, next weekend my sister gets married. YAY JES! And I get a new brother (even though I technically already had him as a Brother). I’m so excited and despite the fact that I will be going through the ringer with Jes in last minutes and welcoming incoming family, I really am looking forward to the exhaustion that it will all bring. Because at the end of the long days, my sister will be married to our new family member. And that’s super cool! I’m so excited for she and Nayt.
So, needless to say, with all that the Lord is giving Matt and I to joyfully accomplish over this weekend, this upcoming week and next weekend… this blog may be a little quieter than my fairly consistent ramblings. (Cause work is pickin‘ up quick here and I will be focused on wedding stuff Wednesday – Saturday night.)
So, I warn you all a head of time to grab some extra Kleenex and be ready for the separation anxiety that I’m sure will not be experienced. =) Take care, all!
Today’s Day
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
A Walk in the Past
Have you ever run across someone you used to know? Well it happened to me a little while ago. And without trying to be a complete jerk (though I’m sure I really can be and have been) there just are some people that you wold prefer to leave in your past. I’m not talking about some haunting, “I shouldn’t have done that,” past memory. I’m just talking about, “I have moved on and I’d like to progressing on,” kind of past memory.
God placed a defining decision before me. And I made a decision for His glory that changed my life direction forever. I chose the harder road. I picked the “not right in front of you” road that had risk of leaving my dreams in the dust.
But a little while ago I looked back at what was left behind. And I really didn’t want to.
But sometimes when you run into people of the past, you look back by default… for that is where that person belonged.
You know, but there’s this eerie feeling. This “I don’t want to go there” feeling. This awkward “I wonder who you really are” feeling and yet this desire to no longer know the answer. It’s kind of hard because you can only remember that person as they once were and yet you really wonder if they have grown on. But part of you really just doesn’t want to know.
Maybe I’m just a psycho…
but it’s really kind of weirded me out a bit over the past few days
and in risk of being a complete jerk, I really would just prefer not to go there ever again.
… maybe they felt that way too …
At Least We Know…
“Then Moses returned to the Lord, and said, ‘Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if You will, forgive their sin-and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” [Exodus 32: 31-33]
Sometimes I just want a feel-good response from God. I’m not having a good day… pity me, Lord, whine, whine, whine…And I really want God to say, “Awww, poor baby, come here let me take all your troubles away and make everything all better instantly.”
But we don’t serve a Sugar Daddy God. He’s not there to hand me a good day on a plate because I chose to call Him Daddy. I mean come on, taking up a cross daily (Luke 9:23) is not a walk-in-the-park kind of experience! And yet so many times I want to see more flowers and feel a light breeze on a fake park-walk Christianity.
I read this passage this morning from Exodus. It really floored me how “This is reality” God was with Moses about sin. Moses cries out in a passionate plea for the people of Israel and God speaks a harsh, but real Truth. Moses so passionately hands the Lord his eternity in place of the people of Israel, with whom Moses was just furious ( a righteous anger as Matt calls it). But even beyond that, the Truth is still the Truth. Sin causes separation. There must be a payment for sin. And the people haven’t paid it. Sin causes great consequence.
God’s mysterious grace continues in the following verses as He promises to send His angel with the people to guide them, yet the punishment still remains (Exodus 32:34-35). The discipline is still necessary.
And as uncomfortable and inconvenient as the honest Truth may feel, we are so blessed to at least know the Truth. I mean could you imagine what the desert wandering could have been if God had chosen not to tell Moses that sin equals blotting out of the book? What disillusion Israel would have created and lived in. What fake reality.
The Old Testament is a huge flashing neon sign pointing toward the need for and the coming of Jesus Christ as Savior. So for those of you who have this unsettling feeling in your stomachs after reading the unfinished “blot you out” words of God, please do take it in full context. Not only is Christ coming to be the perfect sacrifice for our sin so that we could be in God’s book of life, but also God goes on to lead his rebellious and sinful Israelites through the desert for 40 years! He daily leads the people and while that particular generation of Israelites never makes it into the promised land as a consequence of their sin, God pours out His mercy and grace in allowing their children to experience His blessing in the promised land.
But even in light of the whole picture context and the cut-down-to-just-Exodus-32-and-prior context, it still delivers quite a wake-you-up punch of Truth. God doesn’t hold anything back and speaks the Truth in love to His people.
Even when the Truth hurts, He still knows and does best.
– What has He revealed to you through these passages? –